A unique blog dedicated to covering the worlds of book publishing and the news media, revealing creative ideas, practical strategies, interesting stories, and provocative opinions. Along the way, discover savvy but entertaining insights on book marketing, public relations, branding, and advertising from a veteran of two decades in the industry of book publishing publicity and marketing.

Follow by Email

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Does Book Publishing Revel In Hoaxes?

I
came across a copy of Literary Hoaxes: An Eye-Opening History of Famous Frauds,
a book by Melissa Katsoulis, a writer in London who has been published by the
London Times, Financial Times, Sunday Telegraph, and the Daily Telegraph. What an interesting idea – a book dedicated
to book fakers. Does it seem right that
these hucksters, liars, and thieves get immortality, while legitimate authors
are ignored or forgotten?

We’re
not talking about unintentional plagiarism here, though that would be enough
to express disgust at a sloppy writer, but a real crime – legally and
morally. There are people who intended
to pass along fake stories, documents, and records as if the real thing. The Autobiography of Howard Hughes, The Hitler
Diaries, and The JFK Letters come to mind as high-profile hoaxes.

What
about the ones we’ve missed?

Just
as people get away with murder, rape, political corruption, embezzlement, and
other crimes, there should be no doubt that hoaxes have gone undisclosed,
undiscovered, and accepted as truth.
Others have manipulated the system, taken advantage of our trust, or
exploited a weakness to deliver a book that was nothing more than fiction but
accepted as unabashed gospel.

Memoirs
tend to be the most common genre ripe for bullshit. These tell-all’s read more
like tall tomes. Many memoirs embellish
or purposely omit things but all too many of these stories are filled with
downright lies. Remember James Frey,
Michael Gambino, Margaret James and Laurel R. Willson and their memoirs? All faked.

Why
do people go to such lengths to practice such deception?

1.Ego
and pride

2.Pursuit
of money the easy way

3.Mental
illness

4.For
the fun of it

5.Desperate
for attention or sympathy

6.Political
manipulations

7. Seek revenge

Katsoulis
says we need gate-keepers of truth but it is easier said than done. She writes:

“The
assumption that some kinds of writing are truer than others is not as straight
forward as it might sound. Can it
categorically be said that novels are untrue and memoirs are true? Surely not, as anyone who has basked in the
wisdom of a great work of art (written, painted, or played) will know that the
only way to convey what it is like to be alive is to conjure something
aesthetically complex enough to approximate to our experience of reality. Because reality, after all, is nothing if not
a mystery. Writers of memoir, biography
and straight non-fiction have a more tenuous claim on the faithful transmission
of truth than might at first be supposed because stories about people, places
and events can only ever be passed down through the imperfect, partial minds of
others.”

However,
the author seems to appreciate the entertainment value brought by hoaxes:

“Books
– whatever form they take – will always ask us to enter into a contract of
trust with them. For as long as there
are publishers to bestow upon an author the incredible power of seeing their
work in print, there will be writers who abuse, pervert, and willfully
misconstruct the printed word. But you
only have to read the stories of fantastic literary hoaxers like Grey Owl or
Romaine Gary to know that the world would be a much duller place without them.”

One can use their skill, profession, or even passion for
the wrong thing. It’s easy to abuse your
talent. We abuse our minds and bodies
easily with all kinds of substances, so why would journalistic or book writing
be any different?

The
next time you read a book that’s non-fiction you may want to question its
authenticity. Some of those books need
to be reshelved to where the novels rest.
Fact is stranger than fiction, and sometimes facts are fiction.

“My
belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment
and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our
sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.” –Joyce
Carol Oates

Literary
Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life by Evan
Hughes highlights the influence of Brooklyn upon its greatest writing
residents, which included: Walt Whitman, Henry Miller, Thomas Wolfe, Arthur
Miller, Normal Mailer, Truman Capote, Pete Hamill, Asaac Asimov, Bernard
Malamudy, Bill Styron, and Marianne Noore.

“Part
of Brooklyn’s richness as a site of the literary imagination, I think, lies in
the very fact that it is not only a truly distinct place from Manhattan but a
less exceptional one in the strict sense of the word. More human in scale, less visually
extravagant, not as wealthy or stylish, more suspicious of what is fashionable
or famous, slower to hunger for the new – Brooklyn is more like America."

About Me

Brian Feinblum, the creator and author of BookMarketingBuzzBlog, is the chief marketing officer for the nation's largest book promotions firm, Media Connect (www.Media-Connect.com), formerly Planned Television Arts, and has been involved in book publicity and marketing since 1989. He has served several book publishing companies as a publicist, book editor, and acquisitions editor. Brian, who earned a BA in English from Brooklyn College, became a published author in 1995 when he penned The Florida Homeowner, Condo and Co-Op Handbook. He resides in Westchester, New York with his wife, two young children, and an English Bulldog.